College student gets modelling offers after Instagram photo goes viral

Anok Yai from Plymouth State University was just another college student having fun at Howard University’s homecoming event in Washington DC last week.

That is, until a photographer took a photo of her and posted it on Instagram. He had shot 2 photographs of her as he was photographing people with nice outfits..

“After Yardfest ended, I began walking toward the dorms, when a photographer that goes by the name Steve ‘theSUNK’ Hall randomly started taking photos of me,” Yai told Yahoo!

“While he was taking down my information, he said, ‘Today was a good day, and a couple of these photos have the potential to go viral.’ I didn’t really think much of it, so I just smiled and went on about my day.”

The post has seen gone viral, with 12,100 likes at the time of writing.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BahqMEDh22W/

“It wasn’t until later that evening that I picked up my phone and found hundreds of Instagram notifications piling in,” Yai says.

“Before all this happened, I had around 150 followers and was getting about 20 to 30 likes on each photo, and then suddenly, these numbers skyrocketed in a matter of hours.”

According to the Associated Press (via New York Times), Yai said last week she has since received three modelling offers because of the post.

It wasn’t something the South Sudanese student who moved to America in 2000 had ever thought was achievable.

“I’ve always thought about modelling,” Yai says. “It’s a dream that I’ve wanted for a long time, but always pushed to the side because of self-doubt and distractions from school. Now I see this dream as something a lot more obtainable.”

Will she leave school if any of those modelling offers fall through?

“I’ve had a few offers here and there, but I’m keeping my options open for now, before I make a decision on who I want to commit to,” she says.

“I definitely want to finish getting my bachelor’s in science, so I would probably finish school online while modelling at the same time; just have something to fall back on.”

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